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By James Halpin (Staff Writer)
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Published: March 1, 2013

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More than half of former prisoners from Lackawanna County return to state prison within three years of their release, the third-highest reincarceration rate in the state, a new report from the state Department of Corrections found.

In overall recidivism, Lackawanna County measured eighth in the state and the highest in Northeast Pennsylvania, with 60.6 percent being rearrested or reincarcerated in state prison. The report documents the three-year outcomes of prisoners released between 2006 and 2008.

Statewide, 62 percent of inmates are rearrested or return to state prison within three years of their release.

Bret Bucklen, the head statistician for the Department of Corrections, said the report was completed as part of the Justice Reinvestment Initiative and is intended to establish a baseline to evaluate the future performance of halfway houses, which will be expected to maintain or reduce recidivism rates.

"The big picture from the report is that the rate is incredibly high and has remained unchanged from the past," Mr. Bucklen said.

The Scranton/Wilkes-Barre metro area, one of 14 included in the report, ranked second in the state for reincarceration to state prison - 47.5 percent of 1,517 inmates had returned to state prison - while it ranked ninth in the state for rearrest rates alone, with 44.5 percent of 1,658 inmates rearrested within three years. Overall, the metro had the eighth-highest recidivism rate in the state.

Paul Lindemuth, a criminal justice professor at King's College, said the numbers are in line with what one would expect from a criminal justice system that merely takes offenders off the streets and then turns them out with few prospects for leading productive lives.

"We're basically warehousing individuals, and no one has found a cure-all for dealing with these inmates in order to put them back out into society," Mr. Lindemuth said. "We expect individuals let go from prison to be able to find a job, find a place to stay and sustain themselves without that much to go on. It's kind of a hard thing to ask of them."

Mr. Bucklen said a law that went into effect in January requires almost all offenders on parole who commit technical violations - rather than committing new crimes - to be sent to halfway houses rather than back to prison. In the past, some 3,500 parole violators were sent back to prison each year, he said.

The department contracts its halfway houses to 40 contractors, and it is rebidding all of them to include provisions that the operators must hold recidivism steady or lose their contracts, Mr. Bucklen said.

"If they reduce it, we have incentives built in where they can get paid more," he said. "There's an incentive in there for them to reduce recidivism. That's never been done before."

According to the report, the Department of Corrections could save $44.7 million annually by reducing the one-year reincarceration rate by 10 percent. It could save another $16.5 million per year by reducing admissions to state prisons by recidivists by 10 percent, the report says.

Whatever money the department saves by reducing recidivism numbers will be diverted to police and other initiatives aimed at reducing crime, Mr. Bucklen said.

Contact the writer: jhalpin@citizensvoice.com

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